and drove over to her apartment. She began to bang on the apartment door as soon as she reached it. There were some floorboards creaking inside. “I know you’re in there, Cin,” she said as calmly as she could muster. “We need to talk.” More creaking. “So you need to put on your big girl panties and come open the door.” She thought that Cin was leaning on the wall near the door, based on the noises inside. “I’m going to have my say, baby sister. You just need to decide if we do it face to face, or if I do it through the door so all your neighbors can hear.” She paused for a moment.
“I’m going to ask you one question, a very critical question. And you need to answer me. If you don’t, then I’ll still have my answer, won’t I?” She took a deep breath. The door flew open. Cin obviously knew what Cammie was going to ask.
Her head was down. Her eyes were red from crying. “I never had sex with Adam,” she said. Then she began to sob once more.
Had this admission come a day earlier, Cammie would have been completely shocked. Now, however, it seemed to be a bit anti-climactic. Still, there were questions. “What happened? Why would you let me believe that you had? Why would you let me hate him for years and years for hurting you?” Cammie could feel her own tears threatening to fall, but she refused to allow them leave. She was angry. She was hurt. Her trust had been abused. She may have lost the one man she never expected to love.
“He turned me down,” Cin said through sobs. “I offered myself to him and he gave me cab fare. He humiliated me. I was hurting. I never wanted to see him again.”
“Yes, but every time you did, you threw yourself at him!” She exclaimed.
“It was on principal. If I could just get him to sleep with me ever, then I hadn’t lied. Or my lie had become truth. I don’t know. I was crazy. I’m sorry!” She sobbed harder.
Normally Cammie would have reached out to comfort her. That was the history of their relationship, but at the moment she wanted to get as far away from her sister as possible. She had so much to process. The longer she thought about it all, the more her heart hurt.
Bereft. He felt that more and more. Adam didn’t know if Cammie would ever be in his bed again. The forced co-existence for the wedding was going to be a challenge. He would never let Sam and Haley down though. Never. They were everything. He couldn’t hurt them, too.
Rolling over in bed, he was grateful he had a day to mope around. He had tried getting up. He had even walked down to the bagel shop. The bagels…still sat on his counter. His coffee was cold. He had tried seeing if an ice cold soda would shock his system into responding. Even that didn’t work. He had ignored Sam’s call for brunch. He had ignored what he had imagined was Haley’s invite to dinner. In fact, there was no one in this world he wanted to talk to at the moment, not even Cammie.
He went to bed for the night at 7:30pm. It wasn’t hard to do. He had slept on and off the bulk of the day. Even when he woke he felt sleepy. Maybe he had an iron deficiency. He would call the doctor in the morning.
“Glad to see you made it to work,” Sam’s voice boomed through the phone. “I just wanted to remind you that we were going to get together for Christmas Eve this year instead of Christmas Day. We won’t start that stuff until after Haley and I have children.”
“Sounds good,” Adam said trying to sound at least a little bit enthusiastic.
“How are you, Adam?” Sam asked genuinely concerned.
He took a moment to think about it. “How am I?” He repeated the question. “Hmm. I think I’m coming down with something. I’m tired. I didn’t even get out of bed yesterday. I have no appetite. I don’t feel like doing anything. Must be some kind of flu going around.”
Sam chuckled. “Have you really never felt like this before?” He asked.
Adam thought. “No, I can’t say as I have. I didn’t get a flu shot. Is this supposed to be a bad year?”
There was a sigh. “Adam,” Sam began slowly, “you aren’t sick. You